Bird lovers, bird watchers and ornithologists frequently erect birdhouses for housing birds when they are nesting as well as bird feeders for feeding birds. Birdhouses tend to be used only part of the year, typically during “nesting” season. Bird feeders, likewise, tend to be used more heavily in cold, snowy portions of the year when natural feed sources are scarce. Thus, it is not uncommon for a birdhouse to be used only a small portion of the year, and for a bird feeder to only be heavily used for a different portion of a year.
To wit, prior inventors have sought to create combination birdhouses/bird feeders. For instance, the Carpenter patent (U.S. Pat. No. Des. 421,509), the Hyde patent (U.S. Pat. No. 2,392,532), the Spencer, et al., patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,742,914), the Spencer patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,505,975), the Petrides, et al., patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,746,156), the Brown patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,498), the Noll patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,917) and the Missry application (U.S. Published Patent Application No. US 2004/0020444).
All of these prior art patents trying to create a single device that is able to convert from a bird shelter into a bird feeder. The present invention solves this same need.